FT MYERS, Fla. – 2014 got off to a sour note for the Lipscomb men’s basketball team as the Bisons dropped a 72-65 Atlantic Sun Conference contest to homestanding Florida Gulf Coast on Wednesday night at the Alico Center in Ft. Myers.

“We have some deficiencies and we’ve got to perform well to beat good teams on the road and we didn’t,” said Lipscomb head coach Casey Alexander. “Our team plays hard and has a lot of fight to them but that’s not enough. You have to play well and we didn’t.

“We just don’t have the size. We have a couple of guys that will play as hard as they can and do everything they can but we have two ‘four’ men and no ‘five’ men that are playing. It’s hard to play 40 minutes of good basketball that way.”

Trailing 39-30 at the half, the Bisons (5-8, 0-2 A-Sun) allowed the Eagles (8-7, 2-0 A-Sun) to go on a 13-2 run early in the second half to put the game out of reach. Lipscomb would also lose senior guard Khion Sankey early in the final stanza due to a first-half injury making an already shortened bench even shorter.

"Khion's got the heart of a lion and wanted to come back and play in the second half," said Alexander. "I probably shouldn't have let him play but I let him talk me into it because he's that kind of guy.

The Bisons struggled matching up with the Eagles size as FGCU pounded out 36 points in the paint leading to a 49 percent to 38 percent edge in shooting. FGCU also dominated the boards outrebounding Lipscomb 41-31.

Junior forward Martin Smith led the Bisons with 20 points marking eight-straight games he has scored in double figures. He was joined in double figures by twin brother Malcolm Smith, who scored 15 and redshirt-freshman guard J.C. Hampton, who finished the night with 14 points.

FGCU was led by Brett Comer, who scored a game-high 24 points on 9-of-15 shooting from the field including a trio of three-pointers. Bernard Thompson and Dajuan Graf each added 13 points in the win for the Eagles.

After 30 days away from the friendly confines of Allen Arena, the Bisons finally return home on Saturday afternoon hosting North Florida at 4 p.m. To purchase tickets visit http://www.LipscombTickets.com or call 615-966-HERD (4373). The game will also air nationally on ESPN3 and on 94.9 Game 2 in the midstate.

Check back later tonight for additional information including highlights of the action.